Suspicious Minds (1997)
Jack Ramsey (Patrick Bergin) is a private detective in the vein of Philip Marlowe who finds himself romantically involved with the woman he's supposed to spy on, and she's no good! Multiple murders take place and Ramsey makes it his goal to solve the complicated case while still retaining his own sanity, which is hard to do. Meanwhile the mysterious Vic Mulvey (Gary Busey) hides out in the woods touting an assault rifle, might he somehow be involved? You better make yourselves ready for one hell of a neo-noir-istic thrill ride, because this is it!
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Good start, but then it gets ruined
In other words,this film is a surreal ride.
The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.
This is ultimately a movie about the very bad things that can happen when we don't address our unease, when we just try to brush it off, whether that's to fit in or to preserve our self-image.
I hate giving this movie a 5 ... in fact, it should be less ... because it is a pleasant surprise in terms of plot, police procedure to a degree and pacing. Patrick Bergin does not overplay his role, which I appreciate, nor does the direction force him to.But there are a couple of detractions. First is the pretty ridiculous sub-plot of rogue environmentalists which is where we have, and have not fairly early on, Gary Busey.Second is the rather complicated denouement. It's pretty clear throughout that things aren't quite as they seem, which is good, but aside from a general suspicion about everybody I don't think we have a clue about what's coming. For a solution to be satisfying, in my view, we should be able to look back and say we just didn't pick up on the signs.But, again, I liked Bergin in this, liked the acting level of and the characters' challenge to the actors, liked the script pretty well. Ultimately I was left with the feeling of wanting more of the detective and his sidekick ... don't all detectives from Perry Mason on have appealing female helpers? Perhaps there were supposed to have been more movies. Likely they would have been as welcome and thought-provoking.
I must say that as a big Gary Busey fan, I was really disappointed with this film. Not with Gary because he did great but was only on screen for a total of about 10 minutes,(Do not be fooled by the picture of Gary on the cover). Jayne Heitmeyer, was very good in a bad movie, and still could not save this mess. To many twist's and turns in a movie that seemed not to know where it was going. Almost like the plot was made up as the director went along. Not well thought out. I am still confused at the ending, what happened? Sorry but check out another Gary Busey movie, you won't miss this one.
Suspicious minds is slighlty similar to Love is a Gun, Body Double, and even Night Eyes II. The addition of Gary Busey raises the level of this movie slightly and makes it more watchable. Although he does only have a bit part, he adds to it even though he is out of place in this movie. The plot progression is typical of 80s-90s late night low-budget thrillers, but this one is somewhat well made. You can however tell that this is distinctly 90s because of the environmentalist anti-logging sub-plot. On a scale of 1-10 of late night silly thrillers, i give it a 6.